Follow up on Lasagne in Early 20th Century Italo-Argentine Cuisine
Edit. 3 June 2010.
For Adam. When I read this recipe I wonder: Is it actually baked? The nearest thing to a reference to an oven is the instruction to serve it hot. But that could have been achieved by the assembly of the sheets of pasta and the sauce. My impression based on two stints in two different apartments in Argentina is that ovens are not important elements in kitchens and would probably have been less important 60 years ago. And if this is so, I wonder how many of these assembled pasta dishes were just ways of presenting the dish?
For Nick. I’m not sure that we can asimilate these meat balls with the US pasta and meatballs. Albondigas are a time-honored tradition in the Spanish world, so it would not have been a big jump for Italo-Argentinians to combine them with pasta.
More important, I’d like to invite you to reconsider the assumption underlying your response. This is, I take it, that the Italian food of Italy is the ‘true’ Italian food and that of Italians in other parts of the world is a pale and often inaccurate imitation. The point of my post was that as Italian food in Italy was being formed a huge proportion of the population was overseas. Moreover there was constant to and fro between Italy, Buenos Aires, New York, Toronto, San Francisco. What about thinking of these overseas communities as just more regions of Italy?
I could go on.
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I’m going to post comment here as well as in the comments area. Have lots to say about this but later when I’ve done my work for the day. So wait for edits.
This from Australia from Adam Balic of the Art and Mystery of Food.
Lasagne/Lasagna refers to the pasta, as well as the dish, so there are many variations. Even in modern Italy there is a huge amount of variation, I had never seen ricotta in a Lasagne until I went to the USA, where it seems quite common, maybe reflecting southern Italian roots.
Baked pasta dishes under various names (“pasta al forno”, “passtico”, “vincisgrassi” et al.) are vary common too, and not limited to Italy at all. However, there is a recipe that is similar to yours in the cookbook written by Ippolito Cavalcanti (duca di Buonvicino) in 1839 in Naples.
And this from Belguium, from Nick Trachet.
ah, the famous pasta and meat balls, an all American cliché. During my many travels in Italy (especially Rome, I used at a time to work for FAO), I have NEVER encountered meat balls with pasta. The kitchen of Italy remains very much ‘contadino’: peasant, and earth bound.
Lasagne is typical Bologna-kitchen; the North: pasta with egg, no garlic, no olive oil, vey little spices (nutmeg) and tomato but plenty butter (Bologna is nicknamed “la grassa”) “ragu” (meat sauce) and grana cheese.italian recipes are usually much more specific on the quality of flour -sometimes mixtures of different grades expressed in a number of zero’s- idem for different cheeses. But egg dough, “flat” pasta (opposed to ‘tubular’ and meat sauce is certainly Northern Italian
Certainly there are extant recipes like “Lasagna Cacate” that are not baked, but I’m not sure that there is enough information in this recipe to conclude one way or another.
A lot of people have invested a lot of time in giving the example of “Spaghetti and meatballs” as an example of why Italian-American food is “inauthentic”. Not sure I can see the point. Yes this exact combination is very rare in modern Italy but the combination of meatballs and pasta isn’t.
Historically recipes for “Ragout” were as much garnish as sauce. Meatballs were a very common element in English and French ragouts. I’m sure the derivative Italian “Ragu” was not that much different. In fact the combination if meatballs and ragu to dress a pasta isn’t that rare, you see it in dishes that range from festive “Timballo” to the more homey “Pasta al forno con polpettine”. This latter dish could be very similar to your recipe.
What makes Italian food Italian is not so much the ingredients, but the way of eating, where pasta is considered a soup, taken before the meat dish, wich in turn is followed by vegetables/salad. (the French used to eat that way too until the 70’s, by the way). We’re not talking of restaurant food which is, certainly in the case of Italy, originally a kitchen for travelers/tourists.
That is the primary reason why Italians usually do not mix meat (except meat sauces) with pasta. pasta is mostly flavoured with herbs or strong tasting veggies preserves (fish e.g.)
Pasta is rather modern as an Italian popular food. The staple is still primarily bread, not pasta.
“I’m not sure that we can asimilate these meat balls with the US pasta and meatballs. Albondigas are a time-honored tradition in the Spanish world, so it would not have been a big jump for Italo-Argentinians to combine them with pasta”
Algerians serve kefta (meatballs) with fidwash (fideos).
It is cooked like a sopa seca. The fideos are toasted first, then added to a light tomato broth with meatballs in it. The fideos cook in the broth and soak up all the liquid. This is most likely a Spanish-North African connection.
“My impression based on two stints in two different apartments in Argentina is that ovens are not important elements in kitchens and would probably have been less important 60 years ago. And if this is so, I wonder how many of these assembled pasta dishes were just ways of presenting the dish?”
How important or common are ovens in Italian kitchens? Were the assembled pasta dishes cooked like sopa seca 60 years ago?
Probably not important at all. So assembled. Though I don’t see how big thin sheets of pasta could have been cooked like sopa seca.
“What makes Italian food Italian is not so much the ingredients, but the way of eating, where pasta is considered a soup, taken before the meat dish”
Are you categorizing pasta as a soup in the Italian context based on the order in which a pasta course is served “taken before the meat dish” or a cooking technique?
Both, really. When a newbee in Rome (in the early ’80s), I was always intrigued that in restaurants, ‘paste asciutte’ (cooked dough) would always be listed in the menu under the chapter ‘minestre’ (soups). Of course pasta is often served ‘in brodo’ (in broth) or as part of the ‘minestrone’ (big soup), but the simply cooked long pasta, more often than not served with the ever returning choice of ‘al sugo’ (tomato sauce) or ‘al ragu’ (meat sauce) falls under that chapter as well. Today, you will often find it under ‘primi piatti’, which is less confusing for tourists.
But pasta is never a ‘contorni’ or side dish alongside the fish or meat.
Nor is pasta a starter , which are usually listed in the chapter ‘antipasti’
Very similar to Mexico, Nick, though starters are only now appearing here. But there is sopa aguada (usually a cream or a broth), sopa seca (usually rice or pasta), then the main course of fish or meat.
One thing that you could clarify for me is this “sopa” thing. Does it mean both soup and sops or has the latter meaning been dropped, hence “sopa seca”?
So, soup after all?
Very interesting about pasta being considered a soup. My native informant and husband, Farid (www.chefzadi.com), tells me it’s similar in Algeria. But meat is often included in the sauce or broth (at least by those who can afford it).